


Ben Hargreeves: Posthumous Reflections

by Bendy_CA



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Ben Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Ben Hargreeves-centric, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Dead Ben Hargreeves, Gen, Ghost Ben Hargreeves, Pre-Season/Series 01, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24450388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bendy_CA/pseuds/Bendy_CA
Summary: There is no Ben when Klaus is high.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 21
Kudos: 60





	Ben Hargreeves: Posthumous Reflections

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to [Glass_O_Lemonade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glass_O_Lemonade/pseuds/Glass_O_Lemonade), who beta'd and titled this fic. Without her, this would just be nonsense I wrote at 4 am.

There is no Ben when Klaus is high.

For the most part, Ben is there when Klaus is mildly intoxicated. A few puffs and a few shots aren’t enough to take him away. When the poisons start to take their effect, everything around Ben seems to fade, but he is still there. But then. But then the puffs become pills and the shots become a bottle and Klaus is truly drunk or high or both. Then, suddenly, Ben is in the other room.

Klaus can't see nor hear him when he's in the other room. Ben suddenly is like the rest of them and can be blocked out. There is nothing when there is no Klaus. Ben can't say for certain where it is, but it isn't anything like the afterlives he's heard of.

It is dark and black and his undead nothingness somehow becomes more nothing. The “other room” is an absence of everything. He isn’t fully there, barely a stream of consciousness. It is drowning, and he should be afraid, but nothingness doesn't have feelings. What is there to fear, anyway? He's already dead.

Every high reaches its peak, and eventually, it comes down. The world fades back in. It's difficult to process when he comes back. He keeps his hood up and he stays silent and is thankful Klaus doesn't goad him into voicing his experience.

He doesn't want to speak about it. He knows extreme pain, it's an old friend. He knows what it feels like to have yourself ripped open over and over again. But… the lack of anyway, completely nothingness, is far worse.

Pain means existence. Nothing means you aren't anything. You don't feel. You don't exist. You just aren't. It’s another death. 

But there is a perk to it. Maybe.

When the world fully returns, not hazy nor grey, he gets a book. Maybe it’s a gift from the universe, as a sort of makeup for his current situation. A pretty shitty gift, if anyone could ask Ben.

He doesn't know whether the books that manifest are real. If they are a manifestation of his loneliness and boredom, his longing for his old life where he was a bibliophile, or Klaus' powers simply pitying him. Maybe the books he's acquired over the years are burned books or perhaps ones damaged beyond repair. That would be fitting.

Wherever they come from, they usually give him some pleasure. Sometimes they act as a sort of comfort. Often, they remind him of the few good times in his childhood. He didn't have much autonomy in the academy, but he did get to choose which books out of Father's collection to read.

The books only come when Klaus has somewhat sobered up over the night. It’s usually early morning when Klaus is either asleep or hungover, hours after Ben returned from the "other room." He finds a spot to sit wherever Klaus ended up that night. He keeps his hood up, though not all the way. He waits for Klaus and he waits for a book to appear.

The first time, it frightened him. The book seemed to appear into existence, out of nowhere. It sat in his hands as if it was meant to be there. As if it was always there. Ben knew it wasn't real, it couldn't be, because he couldn't truly touch anything. He decided then the books are his clothing, another illusion.

The first book was _All My Sons,_ an Arthur Miller play. It was appropriate, considering how Ben died.

Sometimes it’s a worn-out paperback, dog-eared as if another ghost had read it before. Other times it would be a nice hardcover of one of his favorites. Those come on better days.

The books are nice. He always loved reading, and it's nice to still have that part of him, even if the book eventual fade. When they leave him, he waits for the next one.

He doesn't get to actually feel the book in his hand. He's holding it, but as everything is, his sense of touch is now muted and numb. He never appreciated the softness of the paper or back cover against his skin. He almost longs for it now. He is thankful that he can still read the words and attempt to block out a world he's not a part of.

They’re of good use when Ben wants to avoid seeing the aftermath of Klaus' self-destructive behavior. It’s never a pretty sight. Reading is better than seeing his brother continually break himself. And trying to change Klaus doesn’t help.

Ben remembers all his endeavors to help Klaus. He tried and tried for so long with begging, pleading, empty threats, guilt-tripping, anything to get him to try to sober up or at least try to cut back. But nothing ever worked. Klaus was spiraling and even his stints in rehab didn't change anything. Now Ben doesn't say anything more than a few remarks when Klaus gets into his antics. They’re often more sarcastic, sometimes almost lighthearted, and rarely appreciated.

One of the books he was given was _Jane Eyre_. He wasn't a fan of the gothic romance, but it was either that or watching Klaus’ unrestful sleep. He didn't remember much of it, he found the drama dull, and the romantic lead creepy, but one line always stuck with him. The romantic lead explained his relationship with the protagonist as a string knotted to his rib, connecting him to her. He feared their separation would break it and he would bleed inward and be forgotten.

Excluding the romantic aspect of the metaphor, that was exactly Ben's ghostly relationship with Klaus.

When he died, he intentionally stayed with Klaus. He cared about Klaus and felt responsible for him. And since he was the only connection Ben had to the real world, he wasn't going to lose it. He couldn't help Klaus in life, but maybe in death? He could help Klaus do better, and take care of himself, and have the life Ben didn't have. He could stop partying and taking drugs, leave the academy, and go to college. Maybe Ben could be almost happy, living vicariously through his sibling.

But of course, that would never happen. Klaus was too afraid, and everything got worse for him. He left the academy, but the nightmares and the ghosts grew worse, so the partying and drugs and alcohol increased. 

That caused their bond to weaken. At the end of his life, their relationship was already cut into, but now it is something scarred over, with resentment and bitterness. It is nowhere near the level of Luther and Diego's feud, but it is difficult. Klaus hated Ben's “nagging” and Ben hated how Klaus wasted his life and potential.

There are days in which Ben knows they hate each other. His brother, a person he once called his best friend in the world, and now there are days he hates him.

The first time he found himself wishing Klaus had died instead, Ben, for everyone's sake, attempted to leave.

It wouldn't be permanent. He would leave and stay away for a while, preserve what was left of their friendship. He just needed to be on his own for a while. They were alone in an alleyway and were fighting. Ben said he was leaving and Klaus, slumped over on the wall, screamed back at him, saying he was overjoyed to see him go.

For the first time in years, he was leaving his brother. Ben walked farther and farther, and the world began to fade. Everything faded more and more, and though he was afraid of what would happen, he had to get away.

Something pulled him back. He tried again, but he struggled to continue forward. He tried once more, then the world faded further as he was pulled back. 

He couldn't walk any farther. He couldn't leave. He couldn’t be alone. Not without Klaus.

He was pulling on the string. He couldn’t go any farther. But if he could, if he severed the tie, what would happen to him? The farther apart they were, the more everything faded. Ben could end up in the other room, but this time he may not be able to return.

Klaus was the only thing keeping him there. Without him, he was truly nothing.

He turned around and came back to Klaus, saying nothing. Despite his silence, Klaus seemed to understand.

Ben could never leave.

He slumped down next to Klaus and put his hood up.

Klaus muttered, “It should have been me.”

Ben tried to lean on his brother’s shoulder, but he just fell through him instead. Their fight was over.

After that, he never tried to stray again. Their relationship seemed to have improved a bit, but it isn't what it used to be. They can never be friends, the brothers that they used to be. There are better days, but there are worse days. No matter how much he wants to wander away or have a break from Klaus, he can’t.

He doesn’t want to hate Klaus. He cares about him so much, and he wants him happy and safe, even if Klaus himself doesn’t seem to want that. But spending every single moment of your existence with only one person to communicate with is… too much. Seeing the worst of their action, not being able to help them. Having them actively ignore and push you away. It’s painful.

He can’t grow or change on his own. Everything learns and knows is what Klaus knows. He has those books, but they aren't the same. The books are old stories. He can't learn anything new.

He can't learn more about the modern world, of politics or science unless Klaus learns it. He knows nothing of what dad is up to, and what little his siblings are up to.

Ben can’t check up on his brothers and sisters. He only knows what Klaus knows of them.

In a conversation he could only listen in on, he learned Diego was kicked out of the police academy and his girlfriend left him. On a tiny TV in a rehab facility, he learned he was an uncle. Allison had a baby, and Ben didn't even know she was married. They don't mention things like that in her films.

While staring at the newspaper Klaus was using as a blanket, he read that Luther followed his dreams. Reading over Klaus’ shoulder, Ben learned through Vanya’s book that she didn’t love them.

Once, when he returned from the other room, he was given her book. It was the first one he didn’t read the book. He read it before, he knew how it ended. Poorly written, anyhow.

He wouldn’t have learned any of that without Klaus. Everything his brother is, everything he does, is all Ben has left in the real world.

It is "we" not "I". “We” not "me". There is Klaus, always seen as himself. Who gets high and is then free of his brother. With Ben, it is always the two of them. And if it isn’t the two of them, it is neither of them.

Ben doesn't have his own separate identity. He never did. One of the many children born without a father on October 1, 1989. One of many children adopted Sir Reginald Hargreeves. Number Six of seven siblings. Then he was the Horror, never separated from his role as a superhero nor the thing that lived inside him. Now he is just another ghost that haunts Klaus.

Mom gave him his name and told him he was “Ben” now. But there was never a moment he truly felt he was ever just that.

Maybe someday.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes:  
> -All My Sons is a play that revolves around many deaths, all stemming from the poor judgment and actions of a father. Take what you will from that.  
> -Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is considered a classic novel, though it has a lot of iffy themes. It has merit in many areas, but I would not personally recommend it.


End file.
